Two Tooele County Sheriff’s officers have been disciplined for their involvement in a Feb. 2 high-speed chase that ended in a four-vehicle accident in downtown Tooele.
Tooele County Sheriff Paul Wimmer said the deputy involved in the high-speed chase and his shift supervisor were both disciplined.
“When we reviewed the chase, some of what they did was outside of department policy,” he said.
Department policy restricts conducting a high-speed chase in heavily populated areas, Wimmer said. The safety of the public must be weighed against capturing a target, he said.
“That needs to be on the forefront of the officer’s mind,” Wimmer said.
Officers were also fairly certain of the identity of the driver in the stolen car, Marcello “Anthony” Aragon, Wimmer said. Aragon had been identified by the owner of the car when she reported the theft to police, he said.
With Aragon’s identity known, officers would have been able to pick him up at a different time, Wimmer said.
The Mitsubishi Eclipse was reported stolen the morning of Feb. 2, and an animal control spotted the vehicle later that same morning. When a sheriff’s deputy attempted to stop the car, Aragon fled.
Aragon, 23, led police on a six-minute chase through fields and residential neighborhoods. At one point the chase wound through the Grandview Village mobile home park before heading eastbound on 400 North to the eventual accident on Main Street.
Aragon was ejected from the stolen vehicle in the crash and died on Feb. 4 from the injuries he sustained. Two other people were hospitalized with injuries from the crash, which involved four cars and eight people.
Dash cam footage of the chase showed Aragon almost come to a complete stop during the chase before speeding away again. Tooele City and Utah Highway Patrol officers attempted to stop the vehicle as it left the mobile home park, but Aragon avoided the road block and spike strip.
Wimmer would not comment on the specific discipline the officers received, but said both are still active employees for the sheriff’s department. The sheriff’s department had not put enough emphasis on its policy in the past and most deputies would have responded the same way, he said.
“It’s a sound document,” Wimmer said. “There’s not a real strong culture in the past to follow it.”
As a result of the sheriff’s office review, the department will adjust its training practices to better follow the department policy, Wimmer said.
“Our practice needs to mirror our policy and in this case, it did not,” he said.
Wimmer took over the sheriff’s office in January after defeating Andy Oblad in the 2014 election. Prior to serving as sheriff, Wimmer was the assistant chief of police for the Tooele City Police Department.
The previous sheriff, Frank Park, held the position for three terms.